Stateline Victoria

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA, PRESENTER: The Victorian Ombudsman has ordered the Department of Local Government to hand over all its files concerning the Brimbank Council. The move means the Department will now not be conducting its own investigation into allegations of corrupt behaviour at the ALP-dominated western suburbs Council.

The Victorian Upper House this week debated a Greens Party proposal to strengthen accountability laws for local councillors. The debate came just days after yet another clash of ALP rivals at a local branch meeting in St Albans.

It was under the light of a full moon last week that almost 200 local members of the ALP crammed a community hall in St Albans. They were there to lend their vote to one of two warring sides: one led by local ALP powerbroker Hakki Suleyman, the other, his rival, MP George Seitz.

Mr Seitz has used Parliamentary privilege to accuse Mr Suleyman of being a standover man and the real power behind what he asserts is a corrupt Brimbank Council.

HAKKI SULEYMAN, ALP ELECTORATE OFFICER: It's a smear campaign and that being callously attacked by using Parliamentary privilege against myself and my daughter. I'm not elected to the Council. I've got nothing to say in the Council. And this has been done by using the Parliamentary privilege. And that's - this is stunning me, but why I should get in more with the Council issue? That's nothing to do with me, the Council.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: He says you're the power behind Council, that you're the standover man, that's what he says.

HAKKI SULEYMAN: I don't think so. Do you see me as a standover man? I'm not a standover man. Anybody can come here and they can vote whatever they want away. I'm with the people of Brimbank. I'm working for my community and that's what I'm doing. And this is what I doing, you can go and ask the people what they thinking about me, and what I doing to my community. All I'm concern is the Brimbank community.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: What have you got to say to George Seitz, finally?

HAKKI SULEYMAN: Well, what can I say? I'm not a Member for Parliament so, that's all I can say. I just leave everything for God. Thankyou.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: In the same Parliamentary attack, Mr Seitz branded Mr Suleyman's daughter, Natalie, a Brimbank counsellor of being the Robert Mugabe of Brimbank.

NATALIE SULEYMAN, BRIMBANK COUNCILLOR: All I can say is that the slurs that have been made against me by various political opponents are baseless, untrue and it's unfortunate when, you know, certain local politicians that, you know, are obviously swimming in the gutters in relation to some of the statements that have been said in relation to me.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: In this vote, the numbers were close. So close, that there were calls for a recount.

Amid the swirl of confusion, there was no recount and the losing side, supporters of Hakki Suleyman, were angry.

SUPPORTER OF HAKKI SULEYMAN: It should have been a yes or a no on a bit of paper in a proper ballot box. All right? That's what we are talking about. Not this bullshit.

SUPPORTER OF HAKKI SULEYMAN II: You know what they do? Like that, two-hander, you know, like that. Yeah! Two, like that, they holding.

SUPPORTER OF HAKKI SULEYMAN III: Make the two paper like that, and they make like that. And they deny it! They said 90, go to 90!

SUPPORTER OF HAKKI SULEYMAN IV: I don't know how they did that, but ....

BERNIE FINN, LIBERAL MLC: Because I tell you what, an anti-crime commission, if it got its fangs into Brimbank, it would think it was Christmas.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: The Upper House this week debated a private members bill proposed by Greens MP Greg Barber.

GREG BARBER, GREENS MLC: If an ICAC was to be introduced, we would need a range of new yardsticks by which public officials could be measured and therefore could have been found to have been in breach of.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: He's calling for greater disclosure of gifts and political donations to local counsellors. The Government and Opposition combined to defeat the bill.

BERNIE FINN: But we need something much stronger than the proposal that he's put forward for councils such as Brimbank, where we have these feral counsellors run amok, where we have corruption on a grand scale. This is political corruption on a grand scale that is causing enormous harm to thousands and thousands of people.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: Stateline understands that since announcing his investigation of Brimbank last week, the Ombudsman has received a further large number of complains about the Council. For several weeks, the local government department has been considering whether it should conduct any investigation into Brimbank. The Ombudsman has now relieved it of that decision, as he's taken over the file.

Brimbank City mayor Sam David acknowledges the differences inside the local ALP branch, but not any inside his Council.

SAM DAVID, BRIMBANK MAYOR: We got some problems, but in due course, we'll fix 'em, yeah.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: What about problems inside Council?

SAM DAVID: There's no problems inside Council at all.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: The Ombudsman thinks there is.

SAM DAVID: Well, yes, this is because of the Council using the Parliamentary privileges to call certain names and certain stories.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: The split in the local ALP branch involves the same faction as that of Premier John Brumby, Labour Unity. The Opposition asked the Premier this week for an assurance that no MP or Minister would be dissuaded from giving evidence to the Ombudsman's inquiry.

JOHN BRUMBY, VICTORIAN PREMIER: In relation to the leader of the Opposition's question, if any individual, if any Member of Parliament has any information, the Ombudsman has wide powers and members should provide that to the Ombudsman.

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA: A spokesman for local government minister Richard Wynne says the minister is unavailable for interview.